


In The Skin

by Erin_Ravenseeker



Category: Original Work
Genre: Karma - Freeform, Magic, Magic Books, Tattoos, enjoy, this wasn’t meant to be this look but oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 12:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15841242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erin_Ravenseeker/pseuds/Erin_Ravenseeker
Summary: Writing Prompt #24: Person. Place. Thing.Use these three things as a start to your story.Person: A bored tattoo artistPlace: A college dormitoryThing: A magic book/////////Prompt taken from http://unblockingwritersblock.tumblr.com/search/writing+prompt+%2324





	In The Skin

In a cheap tattoo parlour off the main street works a young artist, by the name of Lif. She’s a college student, and she works late on Tuesdays, Fridays, and all day over the weekend. The Tattoo Parlour doesn’t make too much money; it’s off the beaten track, rarely visited by completely new people. Rather, it makes its revenue off returning customers and recommendations to new customers from. And that’s fine. With a large library just down the street, one that has rows of ancient-looking books punctuated by bright, shiny new ones, the days aren’t dripping with boredom. Instead they’re filled with scenes of fantasy; mountainous dragons with scales rippling like molten silver, and claws so sharp they can _crack steel_ ; panoramas of vast rifts between continents, with darkness and unknown creatures seeping out onto the land around them; jagged horrors in the twilight, prowling through murky forests and seeking to tear flesh from bone.

And Lif reads these books, walks through the library until a leather binding, open page, or pattern on the spine catches her eye. She takes two or three at a time, sometimes fiction, sometimes non-. Reading helps pass the hours in the tattoo parlour when there’s no work to be done, and to lose oneself in a story that isn’t your own, Lif has discovered, is a mystical experience, feeding your imagination and expanding your knowledge and opinions of how the universe could function.

One night in her dorm, Lif pulls an unread book from the handful she’d taken a week prior, a set she’s been planning to return to the library. There is no point hanging on to the unread books, she’s discovered; they create clutter and she's bound to pick one of these up some other time, when her gaze wanders through the shelves and lands on it once again. It has an old-looking blue cover inscribed with a damask scroll pattern in gold. The book itself, despite its age-stained paper, is in pristine condition. Opening it, Lif finds the text to be hand-written, complete with blotches of ink in places, but the ink never bleeds through the paper. The writing itself is in an elegant cursive, the sort that one immediately associates with calligraphy.

Reading this particular book is a unique experience. It tells stories of legends lost through time, and legends Time took by the hand and led home. It speaks of witches and healers, seers and psychics, clairvoyants and soothsayers, enchanters and exorcists. It tells tales of curses cast, broken, sometimes washed away and forgotten. It communicates the uses of natural medicines and dangerous poisons. Unusual creatures that aren’t seen in your average nature documentary. It also speaks of less believable things: the ability to peer into the future; enchantments and curses to put on people, places and objects.

It’s ridiculous, of course, but on a whim, when Lif next takes her books back to the library to return them, she brings this one out again. It has no name, and shows up nowhere on the catalogue. She can’t find a barcode or number to check it out with, something she hadn’t noticed last visit; she was looking at the library news board as the checkout lady was going through the books. So she takes it home, and out of sheer boredom one night in her dorm, Lif draws one of the so-called protective sigils on the back of her hand.

The first incident happens a day later.

Lif is on her way back from the tattoo parlour. She’s walking down the road a few blocks from her house when, distracted by a poster she sees on the wall advertising a concert tour in a few weeks, bumps into a stranger. She stumbles back, apologising profusely, as some important study sheets escape the confines of her loosely-shut bag and are carried by the wind down the street to the left. Lif chases them, picking each sheet up when it finally lands. When she grasps the final one, she’s already run a block. Instead of walking back the way she came, she decides to forgo her usual coffee on the way back to the dorm (today’s server is badmouthed anyway, she remembers) and takes the alley she’s stopped at.

A couple hours later, she’s in the kitchen getting food as her roommate lounges on the couch watching the news, and she happens to see a segment about a car crash that day. According to the news, a car veered off the road and smashed into a building. It only takes her a few minutes to realise the crash was on the very same road she would have been walking down had her papers not gone flying.

She doesn’t think too much of it other than dismissing it as a simple coincidence until much later, when she’s washing her hands at the bathroom sink and catches sight of sharpie markings on the back of her left. They’re half rubbed off, but the pattern of the so-called protective sigil is still clearly visible. Once again, she dismisses it, rubbing at the sharpie markings with soap until they’re mostly cleared.

It’s not until she’s lying in bed, trying to sleep, when she recalls the name and purpose of the sigil.

_Avoidance of Danger._

~ ~ ~ ~

The second incident happens a few weeks afterwards. A young man comes into the tattoo parlour, asking for a design he’s drawn out on a sheet of paper. Lif can’t deny he’s quite good-looking and, when she examines the paper, an excellent artist too. She agrees to do the design, with the preface that it might take quite a long time to achieve the same level of detail in the sketch. The young man agrees, saying he isn’t at all rushed for time, and would in fact greatly appreciate if she put in extra effort to ensure the design is precisely as on the sheet. Once again, she agrees.

At the end of the tattooing session, the young man thanks her and, after checking the result in a mirror, compliments her on her accuracy to the design and gives her a little extra pay. She thanks him in return as he leaves, then returns to looking through the strange book she’d found before.

An hour or so later, a thought crosses her mind, and she quickly finds the section on protective sigils once more. She picks up the design sheet the young man gave her; he must have forgotten it when he left. Looking through the sheet and book in tandem, she locates several of the "protective sigils” within the young man’s design specification. A month ago she would have dismissed this as pure coincidence, likely resulting from these symbols having common ancient counterparts with other meanings, but now she considers the possibility of a connection.

Nevertheless, she doesn’t think too far into it until a couple days later, when the news once again brings her attention to her city’s misfortune. A bomb went off in a market, killing many people. The presenter lists the deceased, as well as the injured. In the list of the injured, the name of the young man Lif had given a tattoo comes up. However, the part of the news presentation that catches her attention is the wording the presenter uses. “They are extremely lucky to have survived this unfortunate event.” Lif recalls the tattoo design, and two of the sigils inscribed in it.

_Protection against Misfortune. Good Luck._

~ ~ ~ ~

The third time, Lif decides they actually aren’t coincidences. It’s the holidays, and she’s driving home to see her parents and old friends again. She doesn’t take the freeway, instead choosing the less-travelled scenic route through the mountains. It’s a beautiful drive, the winding slopes stretching down in shades of deep green, auburn and several different oranges as the autumn leaves float from the trees to create a carpet of crackling upon the ground. The valley she travels alongside is partly covered behind a thin, misty, midday fog. The sun is just covered by clouds, projecting beams of sunshine through the air, and with the top of her convertible down Lif can feel the crisp, chill air that promises rain to come.

Sitting on the edge of the road, up ahead of her, she sees a man. Normally she would drive straight past, but this time something’s different. He’s sitting hunched, elbows on his knees. He’s not enjoying the scenery, though, and there’s no transport nearby to indicate he’s just there for the view. Beside him is a briefcase, and he himself is dressed in a suit. 

Against her better judgement, Lif stops. She lets her car roll slowly up in front of the man, and it comes to a halt as he lifts his head. She leans out the side of the window to greet him. Asks if he’s alright. He has a defeated look on his face. He was driving with his girlfriend to go attend an important business meeting, something that could make enough money to keep his younger sister on the treatment she needs. He was kicked out of the car for reasons he didn’t particularly want to share. Lif discovers they’re headed to the same city. She offers him a ride.

They get along well. He has a wicked sense of humour, and Lif can’t help but feel he has a vibe to him that makes it impossible to be unkind. She never really finds out why he was kicked out from the car, but she can’t bring herself to mind too much. He shares stories from when he was a student, and gives Lif some good life advice. At some point he shows her his left forearm, tattooed at an old, dusty, and admittedly shady parlour on the other side of the country. It’s covered in lines and swirls and patterns and symbols, some of which Lif thinks look a little bit familiar, but she can’t place them. However, she does compliment the handiwork, relating to the difficulties of being a tattoo artist.

When they arrive in town, she drops the man off at his business meeting, and he thanks her greatly. It’s twenty minutes before the meeting, enough time for him to clean himself up and run over his pitch. He couldn’t be more grateful, but Lif is just glad they got there in time. She wishes him well, and then is on her way.

Later, she’s absent-mindedly leafing through the sigil book on a whim, when she comes across two sigils she recognises from the man’s tattooed arm. She ponders upon the meaning of the different words, and eventually accepts the possibility that maybe, just maybe, these actually do work magic.

_No Ill Will. Always Timely._

~ ~ ~ ~

The sigils in the book aren’t purely for protection. There are others, too. Hexes meant to bring ill to those that bear them. The book can give as well as take away. It seems unfair to give someone bad luck, or put them into dangerous situations, or to make them absolutely repelling to others. So Lif never uses these.

No, that’s a lie. She’s used them. Once.

One day, two people came into the tattoo parlour, a man and a woman. They were married, if the rings on their fingers were anything to go by. The man had a harsh look, a classic case of resting bitchface turned permanent snarl. His eyes were sharp and the way his hand constantly flexed at his side, as if he wanted nothing more than to fist it and punch something, put Lif on edge. They began to look at the design photographs displayed on the wall. The woman was pretty. Her long black hair was nicely curled, and she had a soft face. Lif frowned. There was a bruise on the woman’s temple and she carried herself nervously, as if expecting to be attacked at any minute. She seemed quiet and withdrawn, but in a way that suggested it wasn’t her natural personality. As she adjusted her sleeves Lif briefly caught sight of bruises up her arms.

The woman motioned and spoke quietly, pointing as if suggesting something on the wall to the man. The man turned on her, voice loud and booming, yelling at her not to tell him what to do, and slapped her. Lif waited for hell, ready to call either the manager or the cops, but it never came. The woman did not fight back, simply hung her head with once hand over the offended cheek. It made Lif sick to her stomach.

When she tattooed the man, she left a little extra gift on impulse. A small something to say ‘fuck you’ to someone who shouldn’t be allowed to live. A Hex from the book.

It was on the news later in the month. The man had been brutally murdered in his own home, gutted and sliced slowly into pieces. The killer had taken their time, and he was likely alive for most of it. The woman was found locked in the cupboard, bound and gagged. They say her bonds were not tight, and her gag seemed to be there to stop her speaking without causing much discomfort. She could not have tied herself up; the cupboard locked from the outside. She refuses to reveal the killer’s identity, saying she can’t remember, but it is speculated she can. Apparently they were kind to her.

Lif feels sick. She locks the book in the safe, won’t even look in its direction, and takes time off work. She can’t hold anything related to tattoos without her hands shaking. It lasts two weeks.

After that, she vows never to use the Hexes again.

_A Slow and Painful Death._

~ ~ ~ ~

She keeps some henna tools in her dorm. It’s a way of practicing her designs and tattooing onto direct skin in her downtime. She plans to become an artist one day. Perhaps a tattoo artist, perhaps moving onto galleries. Maybe she won’t become an artist. She might become a businesswoman or entrepreneur, and each day draw onto her hand Always Timely or Magnetism (a sigil title that had amused her for hours, wondering about the possible different effects that could have on someone based on the name alone). Or she might be involved with concerts, like the one advertised on the day of the first incident. Or perhaps she could continue on as a tattoo artist, working her own parlour that doubles as a look into the magic of the world. Crystal balls and all that. A silly idea.

She draws a different sigil on herself every couple of days, in pens or sharpies, just to see the effects. Most of the time nothing happens; there isn’t much opportunity for each different sigil to come into play on a daily basis. Sometimes she uses henna, and the effects of the sigils are more obvious then, with a longer period of time allowed for them to work. She doesn’t use that too often, though, and she never uses two sigils at a time. Despite all those who she’s tattooed with multiple, it feels wrong. As if changing her sigil all the time is cheating.

She practices her designs on others, though, and there have been a few days where she’s been sitting in the dorm, with its off-white lights and beds that are either too stiff, too plush, or annoyingly creaky, her roommate making makeup tutorials because what else is there for a pretty young girl with internet access to do, and she’s drawn designs on her friends, found ways to subtly include good luck charms and protection sigils.

Cassidy got that new job she was interviewed for. 

Annabelle managed to pass her test with flying colours, with a fit of inspiration in the middle of the exam that left her with great ideas.

Devon’s team beat the reigning soccer champions.

Chloe won the writing competition.

Jacob was attacked in the street a day after she drew on his arm. He ended up with minor nerve damage, not enough to be a huge problem but enough to make his life just that little bit harder. Upon investigation into the attack, police somehow found out that he’d sexually assaulted at least five girls.

_Karma._

~ ~ ~ ~

Maybe the book isn’t so bad after all. The effects may be a little bit unpredictable, but Lif can’t deny that the results from the ambiguous ones are fair.

She keeps the book. Her excuse is it could be problematic if someone worse got their hands on it, someone intending to use the hexes.

She’s probably lying to herself. She’s probably just keeping it out of selfishness. She keeps it anyway.

Annabelle does something that really pisses her off. She doesn’t bother listening to her friend’s side of the story, just simmers in quiet anger. She’s still angry the next time she’s practicing her tattooing on the girl, and she goes to take out the book, to use the hexes against her- it’s gone. She can’t use it.

The book shows up again a couple weeks later, when Lif has made good with her friend. She figures it’s okay to keep it after that, if it’s okay with being kept.

She opens her own tattoo shop, eventually. Word of mouth travels, and it becomes a popular place to go.

Nobody talks about the back half of the shop, decorated with many symbols and artefacts of the occult.

_Fate._


End file.
